Of Cows and Virtual Fences
Slashdot linked to a story about “virtual fences,” or radio devices on cows which will allow you to issue commands remotely. What’s most interesting is the researchers note you don’t need to put a radio device on all cows, just the “leader” cows. Apparently, cows follow cows like lambs to the slaughter… They estimate that only 3% of all cows are “leader” cows. Just a little Monday aMOOsement….
Kyle said:
Oct 07, 08 at 4:20 amIf you’re the lead cow, you don’t step in nearly as much dung. ‘-)
Seth Vidal said:
Oct 07, 08 at 7:13 amKyle,
You step in just as much dung, it is just dung that’s from all the other herds
rufusb said:
Oct 07, 08 at 7:31 amUsing analogies that equate humans to animals is offensive…to the animals.
Samantha E. said:
Oct 07, 08 at 3:30 pmI spent a large portion of my childhood on a 300 acre farm that had a lot of cattle on it. The “leader” cows were usually the ones to get out and run up onto your porch (where they’d leave you a “present” while they were trying to figure out how to back themselves out of there), break out of the fence and and then stand stupidly in the road, or get their head hopelessly stuck in the salt lick contraption because they were trying to get ahead of the other cows in a different way. So I guess leadership is relative! 😉
admin said:
Oct 07, 08 at 4:30 pmLeadership lessons we’ve learned from cows:
1. leader cows step in “foreign” dung: so, choose your dung wisely
2. leader cow are not clearly more intelligent than other cows; they just make different, more exotic (dung-ful?), mistakes
essprit said:
Oct 07, 08 at 4:41 pmCows probably don’t forget their secret user name, either, to hide their identity on subversive blogs…
admin said:
Oct 08, 08 at 4:50 pmGood point, esssssprit. You know, I don’t even think they blog.